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Blind Justice – No Matter the Cost (2018)REVIEW

Hitting puberty in the suburbs of central Oregon surrounded by privileged, sheltered and intolerant bubble boy bitch upper-middle class assholes absolutely drove me towards at least 2-3 years of incel rage and thankfully early 90’s hardcore was the perfect catharsis. I’m a reasonable guy, generally speaking, so instead of burning down all of the local churches in my small town and raping a wet puddle of the ashes I started visiting local record stores and buying angry, preachy hardcore music. I loved it, still do. I mowed lawns for hardcore, started terrible bands, started terrible zines, and once we’d gotten free dial-up internet that disconnected every half hour I started e-mailing labels and zines. It made my world bigger and better. You wouldn’t believe how goddamn nice hardcore punk folks were even when they realized I was just a dipshit kid.

I’m still a dipshit, the world is still a rage inducing hell here in the midst of the apocalypse, and hardcore punk is still as good as it has ever been. So since I jumped onto the bandwagon in the early 90’s the big dicks at the US pool party were metallic straight edgers and metalcore hybrids; A time when Revelation and Victory Records were cranking out trendsetters and forward-thinkers while also supporting their old school constituency. By 1998 it’d gotten out of hand and the frightening reality of melodic metalcore became real. Yeah don’t worry you’re not getting 90’s hardcore Cliff Notes here… after seeing Agnostic Front‘s ‘comeback’ tour, and a lot of retro 80’s hardcore popping up, I would witness my first palpable wave of retro revivalist action in the form of throwbacks and a burst of old school hardcore bands showing up. The point? New Jersey hardcore punk band Blind Justice sound like exactly like a standout from that late 90’s hardcore punk bulge.

Mildly metallic riffs, screaming guy up front, gang shouts, ringing guitar feedback, thuggish drum intros, ‘No Matter the Cost’ has all of the right balls to slap with if you’re looking for a straight-forward twenty minute hardcore album. It really sounds like an old Equal Vision Records release a la Ten Yard Fight, Floorpunch, and has the spirit of New Jersey hardcore going for it. If you crossed ‘Bringin’ it Down’ with a band like In My Eyes and a bit of Madball riffing thrown in for good measure, it’d be an approximation of Blind Justice‘s sound. I’d say traditional but they don’t go as far as bands like New Heart or Cutting Through where their approach to the sound is almost entirely predictable and recycled. ‘No Matter the Cost’ cuts the right groove and offers just enough variation to keep the hardcore party going without completely aping another style or sounding rote. That said I don’t think Blind Justice are going to change your life or reinvent the wheel anytime soon, it is a straightforward semi-metallic hardcore album with some light melodic parts. Fans of modern crossover, 90’s hardcore punk, and the ilk should find a solid confrontational hardcore album to bob their head to in ‘No Matter the Cost’.